Selesta woke up in the camp where the day before it had been devoid of souls. A camp similar in every way to the one in which she had been a prisoner.
She imagined the southern lands full of those disgusting places, she wanted to make them all disappear.
She stretched out, the boss's bed, filled with straw underneath, was not very comfortable after all, her back hurt.
She got up and the pain disappeared.
"Don't tell me that I'm already cured of the uncomfortable bed, this is too good, it's just to be suspicious." She said to herself.
She remembered the dream from the previous night, it hadn't been anything special, if it hadn't been for that strange voice telling her to prepare her heart it would have been quite ordinary, she had never heard it, it must have been the queen that was inside her.
"Hello, are you there, Seles? What do you mean by "she's coming"?"
*silence*
"Sure, ignore me, fucking spirits, you never know when they're going to scream in your ear to scare the shit out of you! When you want to talk to them, they don't answer you." She said out loud, irritated.
She left the tent, it was daytime, it was time to move on.
She bit off the cold remains of the skewer and left the camp.
She had found a cloak similar to the one Marianne wore, she put it on, it was useful for going unnoticed, a woman dressed from head to toe in metal certainly would attract too much attention.
She looked around, there was no one, just woods, prairies, and streams. She felt a little lonely.
After a while, she continued towards the valley.
At the valley camp, the chief went to check on the prisoner.
Unsurprisingly, he found her dead. he hated that, even though he treated their wounds, they always died after a while.
He untied the ropes and said to a soldier passing by, "Hey, you there, give me a hand, it's time to bury another one, hurry up, otherwise I'll have you whipped!"
"Yes, Boss!" Said the man, rushing to meet him.
They untied her from the pole and the soldier carried the woman to the back of the camp.
When we got there, there was already a hole made in the ground, there was always a hole ready, there was no shortage of bodies in those parts, if not from steel, or infection, it was for some other unknown reason, death was always an inevitable certainty.
The man placed the body in the hole, closed it with soil, and was preparing to open another one to keep in reserve for the next deceased when something caught his attention.
A mound of soil rose from within the pit that had just been covered, and a small metal spike emerged on the top.
"What the fuck…", the man was about to swear but before finishing the sentence he found himself inside the grave with the dead woman he had buried, before he even had time to die from asphyxiation, a kind of metallic chain crushed all the bones of his body. That time there was no one to dig the next grave.
The chief went to the tent, took a sip of wine from the skin, and swore.
"What a shitty place, I just wanted to get out of this hell!"
He left the tent and as he saw no one in sight he shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Now wake up you idiots! It's time for inspection!"
*Silence*
"I said wake up!" He repeated.
The camp was as silent as a dead man.
"What the fuck?" He went to look in the tents and there was no one, not even in the surroundings, there was no one anywhere.
It was then that he noticed that the ground was strange, there were small marks as if someone had dug it and then covered it up.
Suddenly a voice echoed behind him, "They are all dead, a better death than they deserved."
Frightened, the boss turned around and fell to the ground, in front of him was a small hooded figure dressed in a long cloak.
"Who…who are you?" He said choking on the words.
"You must not have heard of me, I am silent death," the figure sneered.
The figure looked at the blood-filled torso. "You know, I practically lived my whole life tied to one of these, that piece of shit!"
She looked at the boss with fierce eyes, "You know, I want to do something different here, instead of just killing you, I'm going to make you feel that crap," she said heading towards the trunk, giving him her back.
The boss tried to take advantage of the opportunity to try to escape, but when he took a step, metallic chains appeared from the ground and wrapped him in a tight hug, then he was taken in the direction of the trunk where the figure was waiting for him.
The chains grew thorns and tore the chief's armor and clothing as if they were paper, then they simply hugged the pole, tying him to it.
"Yes, all naked and tied up…"
"What the fuck?" Selesta took off her hood, that man's body was strange, the clothes and armor made him look much bulkier than he actually was, he was protruding on the chest and not on the genitals, he was… a woman!
She had very short, boyish hair. She was slightly taller than her, her breasts were small, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to pass as a man. There were a lot of torn bandages on the floor, she must have used them to compress the chest.
The woman on the log laughed, "It's strange you know, after so many years, I came back here, it's ironic."
"Who are you?!" Selestra shouted.
"I am a slave like you! Or at least I was once, one day they left me for dead in another camp and threw me into the woods so that I would be eaten by the wild beasts. But I was alive, I disguised myself as a man and moved up in life until I reached this position, it was quite a turning point, don't you think?"
"I've lost count of the women who have passed through this trunk. At night when the idiots were sleeping I tried to treat their wounds and protect them from the cold, but they died sooner or later, it was frustrating."
Selesta was speechless, apparently, she had gotten away with it without needing any powers, or at least that was what she thought.
"You would never have survived the trunk without a supernatural healing factor, you have a spirit!" Said Selesta, "Come on, show me!"
"These chains are too tight, I can barely breathe, let alone show you anything… please spare me, I can be very useful to you, believe me…" The woman in the trunk moaned, she was about to faint.
At Selesta's thought, the chains loosened and disappeared on the floor, and the woman fell to her knees.
"Damn, she almost killed me just by tying me to the pole, I don't even want to think about the torture she would give me if I was a man…", the kneeling woman thought, rubbing the redness on her neck.
"If you were a man, you would regret ever being born!" Selesta snapped.
The woman's eyes widened, she was sure she hadn't said that, just thought it, could she read her thoughts? The hell?
"Can you read my thoughts? What the fuck, how many powers do you have, who are you anyway?"
Selesta was also surprised, "I am Selesta, the bearer of Queen Seles!"
A fear of death gripped the woman, she clawed at the floor with her feet, she was terrified.
She jumped to her feet and began to run, not toward the outside of the camp, but toward a sword stuck in a straw bag.
Chains emerged from the ground and held her hands, yet she managed to grab the sword.
Selesta ran to her as the woman struggled with the chains.
"Stop you idiot, I don't want to hurt you."
The woman was on top of the bag of straw, but instead of pointing the sword at Selesta, she was trying to point it at her own heart.
For the first time, Selesta was afraid of herself, "how terrible would a queen be, that just mentioning her name was enough for someone to want to commit suicide?"
Mora shuddered.
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